Sequoia had ‘biggest axe to grind’ against me: Ashneer in his book

Former BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover has openly spoken against the investors in fintech firm BharatPe that he Co-founded, in his memoir 'Doglapan', saying Sequoia, "or rather one individual that this political organisation is, had the biggest axe to grind against me".

New Delhi: Former BharatPe co-founder and managing director Ashneer Grover has openly spoken against the investors in fintech firm BharatPe that he Co-founded, in his memoir ‘Doglapan’, saying Sequoia, “or rather one individual that this political organisation is, had the biggest axe to grind against me”.

Grover, charged along with his family members of swindling at least Rs 88.6 crore under their tenure at BharatPe, wrote that a reluctant investor at first, they (Sequoia) are the largest shareholder, owning 19 per cent equity worth more than $500 million in BharatPe.

“With the bank licence and with the launch of PostPe, I was taking the sheen away from Shailendra’s (Sequoia Capital India MD) ten-year-long investment in Pine Labs, which was supposed to go IPO to give Sequoia its biggest payday,” he said.

“They had the most to benefit by playing out a merger between BharatPe and Pine Labs — something that would have been impossible to achieve with me around,” Grover alleged.

According to his book, Sequoia held a 70 per cent stake in Pine Labs, and Amrish Rau (CEO, Pine Labs) “was known to be very close to Shailendra Singh, the MD of Sequoia, with both of them based out of Singapore”.

“Pine Labs was Shailendra’s investment — and therefore high up on their priority list, irrespective of merit. In fact, Sequoia had mandated to give Amrish a $50-million personal outcome on taking Pine Labs public at a $3-billion-plus valuation,” wrote Grover.

However, with the rise of UPI, “Pine Labs turned out to be one of the biggest losers, with card transactions stagnating and credit also getting added to the UPI rails”.

“I wrote to Sequoia in unequivocal terms that they should call off the dogs. This peeved Shailendra, who, in turn, called Micky Malka (Ribbit Capital Founder), to tell him that I was becoming too big for my boots. Micky, while agreeing with Sequoia’s political character, counselled me that I shouldn’t have written to Sequoia and said that they could very well dump my stock,” Grover further alleged.

According to Grover, Micky is the smartest fintech investor on the planet.

“He is a firm believer in the fact that the US funds had invested in BharatPe on the back of his putting in the money,” he wrote.

With that background, “did he get spooked easily, fearing that the Kotak issue would make the bank licence at BharatPe go away? Or was he just unhappy that I hadn’t listened to his hints and soft messages against going on Shark Tank and thought it was time to put me in my place?,” Grover alleged, as he wrote about a set of characters with their motivations against him.